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Residential school survivor calls for new relationship between Canada and First Nations

Susie Kicknosway Jones sits at Central United Church on Tuesday February 16, 2016 in Sarnia, Ont., before her presentation during the Central Forum 2016 Speaker Series. Jones, a Walpole Island resident, spoke about her experience of being taken from her home as a young child to attend a residential school.
Paul Morden/Sarnia Observer/Postmedia Network

Susie Kicknosway Jones was a four-and-a-half-year-old child when she was taken from her home by the Indian agent at Walpole Island and sent to a residential school 565 kilometres away in Sault Ste. Marie.

Tuesday, the soon to turn 80-year-old brought her story about that dark period in Canada's history to the Central Forum 2016 Speaker Series, at Central United Church in Sarnia.

“I will be saying things about Canada that might not sit well with you,” Jones told the audience.

According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, more than 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children were sent to residential schools that operated across the country from the 1870s, until the last school closed in 1996.

Jones said she was eight before she was allowed to return home from the school in the summer, and wasn't allowed to leave for good until she was 16.

“I was truly assimilated, and that was the goal of the school,” she said.

“But, in my heart I was still an Indian.”

Living away from their families, students in the school worked half of the day sewing the clothes they wore, growing the food they ate, and then attended classes for the other half of the day.

“I can't say we received a quality education,” she said.

Even today, memories of the watery soup she grew up on at the school cause her to load up the soup she makes in her own kitchen, Jones said.

The commission says that while some former students had positive experiences, many suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse, and others died while attending residential schools.

Those who died included one of the Jones' older brothers.

She said he was placed in a sick room at the school because of pain in this stomach. Left without care, he died several days later.

“I know they never called a doctor,” Jones said.

The commission found that more than 3,000 children died at residential schools, often of causes that could have been prevented.

Jones said she tried her best to follow the rules at the school to avoid getting the strap, or having her hair cut off, which was a common punishment for girls.

Many of the staff at the school were single women who didn't have children, and didn't know how to relate to them or nurture them, Jones said.

“A lot of what we got was negativity, it was fear,” she said.

“We were always afraid of being punished.”

Some staff at the school had good intentions, Jones said.

“They thought it was their Christian obligation to civilize us,” she said.

“The motto at that time, of the government, was to kill the Indian in the child.”

After leaving the school as a teenager, she went to Detroit where her mother was living. Jones went on to marry a man who was also from Walpole Island and served for several years in the U.S. military.

She worked in social services in Michigan, raised six children, and retired at age 55. Soon after, Jones served on the school board at Walpole Island, and was then appointed to the Lambton Kent District School Board.

Jones said that was when she realized many people involved in the education system knew little or nothing about Canada's history of residential schools.

Some 550 children from Walpole Island were sent to residential schools outside of the community between 1873 and 1960, Jones said.

Today, only 82 residential school survivors are left at Walpole Island, she said.

Some four generations there were directly impacted, but the effects are still being felt by the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who attended residential schools, Jones said.

“I saw it took seven generations to get here, it will be at least seven to get out of this mess we're in,” she said.

Jones said she speaks often about her experiences, motivated by the ignorance Canadians have of residential schools, and the failure of the government to ensure that history is taught in schools.

“We're trying to change that, now,” she said.

Jones said she believes Canada and the First Nations need to start an entirely new relationship, “and have you honour who we are, and we'll honour who you are.”